Personal cleansing compositions that purport to provide skin-conditioning benefits are known. Many of these compositions are aqueous systems comprising an emulsified conditioning oil or other similar materials in combination with a lathering surfactant. Although many of these products provide both conditioning and cleansing benefits, there are often trade-offs associated with their use. For instance, it can be difficult to formulate a stable product that deposits a sufficient amount of skin conditioning agents on skin during use. In order to combat emulsification of the skin conditioning agents by the cleansing surfactant, large amounts of the skin conditioning agent are often added to the compositions. Unfortunately, raising the level of skin conditioning agent in order to achieve increased deposition can negatively affect product lather performance and stability.
One attempt at providing conditioning and cleansing benefits from a personal cleansing product while maintaining stability has been the use of dual-chamber packaging. These packages comprise separate cleansing compositions and conditioning compositions, and allow for the co-dispensing of the two in a single or dual stream. The separate conditioning and cleansing compositions thus remain physically separate and stable during prolonged storage and just prior to application, but then mix during or after dispensing to provide conditioning and cleansing benefits from a physically stable system. Although such dual-chamber delivery systems provide improved conditioning benefits versus conventional systems, it is often difficult to achieve consistent and uniform performance because of the uneven dispensing ratio between the cleansing phase and the conditioning phase from these dual-chamber packages. Additionally, these packaging systems add considerable cost to the finished product.
Striped personal cleaning compositions are also known in the art. However, these compositions do not contain a cleansing phase and a benefit phase and thus stability has not been an issue for these products.
Accordingly, the need still remains for stable personal cleansing compositions that provide both cleansing and improved skin conditioning benefits. It has now been found that striped personal cleansing compositions comprising two phases in physical contact that remain stable for long periods of time can be formulated.
These striped personal cleansing compositions comprise cleansing and benefit phases that are packaged so that the two separate phases are in physical contact yet remain stable. The compositions provide improved deposition of conditioning agents on skin
The compositions of the present invention further provide improved cosmetics via the striped appearance and improved skin feel during and after application. It has been found that such compositions with separate phase in physical contact can be formulated with sufficiently high levels of benefit agents without compromising product lather performance and stability. The superior lather performance can be demonstrated via the lather volume method described herein.
It has also been found that the striped personal cleansing compositions can be formulated with selected skin active agents that provide improved chronic skin benefits to the skin. These compositions comprise a cleansing phase containing a cleansing surfactant and at least one additional benefit phase containing a high internal phase emulsion and a skin active agent, wherein the cleansing and active phases are packaged in physical contact while remaining stable for long periods of time.